


Incoming Tide

by lunaseemoony



Series: Foundations [4]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Day At The Beach, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Time Babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 14:16:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4482410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunaseemoony/pseuds/lunaseemoony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and young Alina make an attempt at cheering up Rose with a day at the beach after some bad news strikes them really hard. When this fails, comfort and a cure comes from the littlest member of their family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Incoming Tide

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is the first among many in a side project called Windows, a series of fics and ficlets in the Foundations 'verse. They'll all be more or less standalones, taking place between the beginning of Foundations and its very end. That being said, I'd strongly suggest reading Foundations first, as most of the Windows fics will contain spoilers to Foundations. Enjoy! : )

 

Two years, ten months, twenty-eight days, eleven hours, and five minutes after their first visit, the Doctor and Rose returned to Mara 4. The Doctor felt that Rose needed the peace that watching the foamy waves wash over emerald sands could provide. Rose took a breath with the ebb and flow of each wave as it fell on her ears. Like a ripple on a pond, each wave also coincided with the triumphant, squealing giggle of a two year old running down the beach, and the hollering cackle of the doting father nipping at her heels. Their feet smacked wet sand as he chased her just long enough to let her think she'd won. Eventually he did catch her, whirling around her front to raise her up in the air as her chunky toddler feet kicked in protest. And of course the moment he set her back down to begin a new game, Alina tore off in the other direction. This time she had a head start, a younger pair of hearts, and the same brand of bullheaded determination on her side that her father had.

Alina inherited more than just his determination, however. She also had her father's eyes, his stormy blue ones. He always maintained that they belonged to her grandmother. But Rose had seen both pairs of eyes enough to tell the difference. Rose's first Doctor lived on in their baby girl's eyes, as well as in her gentle demeanor. Alina was the only blonde person with freckles that Rose had ever met, and she wouldn't have it any other way. At two, she wasn't the pudgy little infant that Rose had nursed for over a year. She'd begun to inherit the Doctor's thin-as-a-rake frame. At times Rose questioned whether she was the mother of her own child, seeing mostly the Doctor in her looks. But he told her every day just how much Alina looked like her, that her gentler features were all taken from Rose. They both agreed that their baby girl inherited Rose's gleeful, gasping laugh.

It was that same gleeful, gasping laugh that warmed her heart when Rose saw Alina chasing the waves. It didn't take her but a moment to realize that they'd chase her back. Rose watched her feet stomp in surprise as she danced away from her slow-moving pursuer before it could bury her feet in cool waters. A moment later her little chest rose for a growling giggle as she renewed her efforts to fend off the waves. She raised her arms in the air, not unlike a seagull about to take flight, as if that and her high pitched roar would scare the waves away. The notion that this was one enemy she couldn't defeat never crossed her mind. The Doctor could have chosen to make Alina aware of this fact. Instead, he plopped himself down on the edge of the tidal pool where Rose had been seated as she enjoyed them playing.

"I see you over here, not having fun, Mrs," the Doctor chided with a humming kiss on her jaw.

"I am having fun," Rose argued, and held down the Doctor's exposed thigh as she made to dart up after Alina when she fell on her bum.

She soothed him with a reassuring thought when she felt his hearts speeding up seeing Alina sitting completely still in the sand. If she was going to, this would precede a cry. But a moment later she leapt up and charged right back into the waves, determined to defeat them. Rose could tell he wanted to be closer to her to watch her, fighting the knowledge that his fatherly reflexes were quick enough to help her if she needed it.

"Just looking at her," Rose smiled, "is plenty of fun to watch."

The Doctor caught her hand and wriggled his fingers into hers. "You're not _having_ fun though. Come on, Rose. You told me you wanted to visit the beach again." There was a slight pout in his voice, still playful but receding with each passing moment their touch shared her thoughts with his. With each breath he became more aware of why Rose's smiles at their toddler's antics faded along with her tiny footprints in the sand. The trip to the beach was meant to be a distraction, to gloss over everything. And it helped, but not entirely.

"I said I'd like to bring Alina along," she argued again.

"Not as fun without her mummy to play with."

He scooted closer to her and laced his leg with hers while pressing a kiss to her temple. His embrace brought with it a bit of green sand caught in his stubble, salt from his lips when she returned his kiss, and an odd cocktail of desire and melancholy. Both feelings were hers. They were his as well, but the Doctor was an expert at hiding his heartache behind a veneer of exuberance. It faded a little with each moment they were in contact, their bond ensuring that all their emotions were shared. Rose knew his exhilaration was a slight farce when her sadness won over in the same way that their feet slowly sank into the wet sand in the tidal pool. Just as her feet were buried, glimmering emerald grains eating up her toes, she felt buried beneath her own inability to rise above her heartache. She should have been the happiest woman in the universe, traveling with two Time Lords across time and space.

"In a little bit," Rose promised.

"Rose," he sighed with a breath into her misty tresses.

She could feel the reprimand in his voice, and the inevitable discussion that they'd thus far been avoiding. The TARDIS essentially had that discussion for them; not that she'd discouraged them from talking about the issue at hand. Rose couldn't be certain. Perhaps she was giving them time with the hope that they would discuss it. For once it was Rose that didn't want to talk. It was childish. But maybe, just maybe if they didn't talk about it, she could somehow turn it all around or figure something out. She had one vein of hope left, and she knew the Doctor's job as her spouse was to crush it with reality.

"I'm fine," Rose insisted in the midst of a sniff.

The Doctor released her hand in favor of wrapping her up in his arm. Her head fell to his bare chest, where his frustrated hearts massaged her ear with an anxious tune meant to calm her down. Just hearing the failed attempt sent her over the edge. The tears that burst forth and salted her cheeks felt needed, even if they flowed in the middle of a flood of guilt. There was no point in hiding it from their little girl. Even a regular child would know when something was wrong. Alina felt it double through her strong telepathic connection to her mother. Sure enough, it didn't take long after Rose crawled into the Doctor's lap for their child to slow her movements to turn around and check on them. She sported that same head tilt she always did when she detected something off.

Still, Rose's instincts were strong. "Oh no, Doctor... I don't..." Rose sniffed and bleated through strangled breaths. "I don't want Alina to see."

"She knows," the Doctor murmured into her hair before dropping a kiss there.

Rose saw her toddling over and buried her head in the Doctor's arm. "What do we... what do... I don't..." Rose stammered and gasped a breath as she fought the quick cascade of sobs. "She asked for a sibling!" Rose clapped her hand over her mouth and shook her head. Speaking that aloud, acknowledging that their baby was a part of this, was akin to peeling back the fragile plaster she'd put over her wound.

"I know," he whispered. "She'll understand."

"Will she?" Rose hiccuped.

The Doctor hugged her tight and nudged her cheek to reach her salty lips to kiss encouragement there. "We'll _help_ her understand, mummy and daddy together, right?"

"Mm," she murmured into his chest hair, nuzzling it.

"Mummy!" Alina yipped as she scrambled up into their laps. She gave her father a questioning glance before wringing her arms around her mother's neck for a hug. "Mummy is sad," she whimpered into Rose's shoulder, and pecked a few tiny kisses there.

"I'm alright, darling. It's... it's okay," Rose croaked.

"Liar," Alina protested. "Mummy said fibbing is not nice."

Rose let Alina fold herself into her arms, trying to make a sort of cradle that they wouldn't be able to have for much longer now that she was growing like a beanstalk. "You're right, fibbing... fibbing... it's not nice," Rose stammered into her daughter's sun-ripened and sandy hair.

She felt the Doctor straightening up behind her, and wriggled into him, needing his support and strength. "Alina, Mummy and I need to talk to you about something, eh?"

Alina's answer struck both their chords, sending cold shivers down her back. "No! I want Mummy happy first. Then we can talk," she declared.

"Well, this," the Doctor started but paused to find the right words. "This is about Mummy. It's about all of us. Can you pop on your listening ears, little lioness, hm?" he added, and popped his finger on his lip as he cupped his palm over each of his ears.

As always, his little lioness craned her neck up so she could watch her daddy and mimic him. She could cup her hands over her ears, but all she could manage of the sound was a click of the tongue. Rose figured it wouldn't be long before this too would change. The Doctor wiggled a little to accommodate them both, enveloping them in his arms. He cradled Rose while she in turn cradled their daughter. He curled his neck around Rose's so he could see Alina's face, which searched his for all the answers.

"You know how we talked about a baby brother or sister, Alina?" the Doctor began. Rose hiccuped and forced a deep, quivering breath out of her chest. "Well, we're going to have to change our plans."

"Why?" Alina chirped. Her innocence dug a deep furrow in Rose's heart.

"It's.." the Doctor stuttered and tugged on his ear before returning his hand to Rose's back. "Well, Mummy can't have any more babies."

Rose had reached a pause in her blubbering sobs until the Doctor uttered those words on a low, tip-toeing sigh. She brought Alina's head to her chest and sobbed into her hair. She'd tried so very hard to not break down in front of her child, holding her breath and rubbing her eyes until they burned. But it was the first time either of them had put the source of their anguish to words, and it sliced right through all of Rose's defenses. Rose sobbed right into Alina's hair, letting loose gusts of hot sighs and gasps coupled with streaks of tears searing her cheeks wetting her toddler's previously dry hair.

Rose was sandwiched between all that she had in the universe, snuggling up with her family on the beach of Mara 4 in a tidal pool before its sunset. And since Alina was born Rose had dreamt of growing that family, in any way she could. The Doctor and Rose had discussed it at length. They would accept their children in any shape or form they chose to greet the world in. But they would never come. Rose's womb wasn't equipped to handle the stresses their Gallifreyan child put it through, nor would it be able to handle any other child following her birth.

"Is it my fault?" Alina squeaked.

Rose's breath froze in place and reversed, sucking in wet, briny air. Nothing could cut deeper than those few words. It was no different than sticking her chest with an icy dagger. Rose could scarcely breathe. "It's... It's my..."

"It's nobody's fault," the Doctor asserted, his voice low and cool on her ear as he pulled them both in tighter and hushed them.

The three of them observed a few minutes of silence. Well, maybe it wasn't silent with Rose desperately trying to calm herself. The most she could manage was to jam up the waterfall of tears to slow it down to a trickle. Taming her savage breathing was a task in and of itself. Alina and the Doctor never made any mention of her inferior human anatomy, except for the Doctor noting how cute it was once. But when she was the only one snorting and gasping for air as she sobbed into her child's hair, that little bit of inadequacy tugged gooseflesh onto her skin and made her wriggle in the Doctor's lap. She felt him gritting his jaw against her neck before he was able to reign in his own nerves. He began to rock them back and forth, dropping kisses and nuzzles to her shoulder while sending his devotion streaming towards her consciousness. She'd never felt like she needed them so desperately as she did then. Her world wasn't complete unless she could be near them, soaking in all of their love and devotion she eagerly sought to earn.

"Mummy," Alina cooed as she shifted in Rose's lap. She turned around to set her palm to her mother's belly, all too reminiscent of when her father had done the same when she'd been its occupant. "I will love you for all of them, 'kay mummy?"

"What?" Rose croaked on a hoarse breath before she could properly pull herself up and out of the quiet funk that they'd slipped into.

"I will make it better!" Alina declared after pressing her little toddler lips to her mother's. "You watch!" she added while hopping out of her lap and darting towards the incoming tide.

"For all the babies, Rose," the Doctor hummed understanding on a whisper. "In their stead..."

Rose pursed her lips and bit her bottom one while watching Alina hobble over towards the row of sea shells on the beach. She then hopped around so quickly that she became a bouncing purple dot (the color of her swimsuit) darting back and forth along that row of shells tossing them all around. She bent over in a couple spots, little purple bum sticking up in the air, looking in small parts like an old woman gardening as she picked at shells.

"That's our baby," Rose gushed and sniffed while bringing the Doctor's arms around her front tighter. Her breaths still came on quaking huffs and stammering whimpers.

"Hmm," the Doctor hummed into her neck, tickling her cheek with his hedgehog spikes and sideburns. "She is." She felt his long lashes fall gracefully shut as he rocked with her, constricting her in his arms in the best way. "Our little miracle."

Rose craned her neck for a kiss, smearing salty tears on his stubbly cheek. Her heart fluttered in her chest. They didn't need to open their eyes. It had taken them over two years, but they'd mapped each other well in that time. This time though, Rose didn't care much for aim. Somewhere on his face close to his lips would do. She managed a corner before he pecked again, finding her true. A moment later they opened their eyes to find Alina galloping up on short legs with her arms full of her haul. The shells on Mara 4 were much bigger than ones Rose might find on Earth. They were easily as big as Rose's hand.

"What d'you have there, little lioness, hm?" the Doctor asked with a prideful grin as Alina dropped the shells at their feet with a big pant.

"Shells!" Alina cheered. She began to line them up and verbally counted them, five of them. Five. Rose cupped her hand over her mouth. Alina held up two little shells, a bright pink one and a cream colored one. "These are Alina! Lil' lion shells!" The Doctor rested his head on Roses shoulder and beamed. They watched her set those two back down so she could pick up a larger dark brown shell with white spots as well as a teal and green shell. "These are Daddy! Big lion shells!" The Doctor opened his mouth but closed it, saving his commentary for when Alina was finished. She arranged the Doctor's shells in a curve next to her own before picking up the remaining shell, a coral pink one with rows of yellow down the middle. "This is mummy! Mummy gets the biggest shell, 'cause Mummy's got one big heart!" She said this with her arms raised in the air, as if to demonstrate. That said, Alina beamed at them before setting the final shell back down to make a relatively complete circle. "See? Circle!"

Rose hiccuped and kissed the Doctor's arm. "We're complete," they chorused.

"Yes!" Alina cheered in a squeal as she fell into Rose's lap, beaming up at her mother with a sort of unadulterated pride that only a toddler could manage.

The Doctor peered over Rose's shoulder to admire his daughter. "Have I told you, little lioness, how much I love you?"

Alina twitched and squirmed in Rose's lap and giggled. "Tell me again!" she demanded.

"I love you," the Doctor replied with his pouted lip and goofy grin.

The Doctor and Rose took Alina to dine at that restaurant they visited while Rose was pregnant. Bless the waitstaff, they remembered them, and congratulated them on their little family. Following this, Rose and the Doctor took Alina to play in the waves, holding hands with her in between, as it ought to be. They let her feel as though she was flying by holding her up above them, her little kicking feet skating over the cresting foamy waves. Their toddler's squealing giggles of pure glee were all the cure Rose had needed, she learned. Alina was a tightly wound bundle of energy scampering back to the TARDIS well after sunset, her new family of seashells bundled up in her little arms. The Doctor and Rose followed at their own pace behind, his palm on the small of her back.

"She's perfect, Doctor," Rose swooned. It was a sentiment they allowed themselves when the situation warranted it, as this day had.

"She is," he nodded and agreed.

"Doctor. What if, I mean I know it's not possible. But what if I was like Alina, a Time Lord-lady, whatever?"

The Doctor stopped in his tracks. Rose felt how caught off guard he was, but desire trickled in with it, along with a twinge of guilt and all manner of thoughts that weren't appropriate to discuss in front of their impressionable little girl. Altogether it was a cocktail Rose couldn't make heads or tails of, except that he'd considered it, perhaps daydreamed about it. He fought back her guilt, particularly with a squeeze of his hand. They'd talked about it, accepted the life that they had. He'd hear no more on the subject.

Still, he played along, "Oh, we'd really need to rearrange the TARDIS. Talk about relative dimensions, Rose. We'd need..." he growled a silent thought. "A _much_ bigger TARDIS."

 

 


End file.
